


An Inquiry into Time and Space Magics

by polyxena_chatoyant



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bullying, Gen, Self-Insert, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-18 23:16:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18127811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polyxena_chatoyant/pseuds/polyxena_chatoyant
Summary: Two mean-spirited, enterprising first-years bite off more than they can chew when trying to find exam answers. Haven't they heard that cheaters never win?





	An Inquiry into Time and Space Magics

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings in this chapter: mentions of past bullying, depictions of bullying. No physical harm.

Ramona drags her eyes across the page, taking in the faded ink on yellowed pages. A gust of wind blows through the open window of her car and she shivers, but not a moment later the sun returns from behind a cloud; the warmth seeps through as if down to her very bones. Reaching towards the cupholder, she brings up the cheap strawberry shake to her lips again, eyes still attached to the page. 

It’s an uncommonly warm day in early March, which is why she’s sitting in a parking lot reading rather than cooped up in her bedroom. Staying inside had its perks, sure, but Ramona couldn’t understand how her roommate could stand to never leave the house at all. She herself would get stir crazy after only a week. But maybe it had something to do with how old Marie was. 

A tinny voice sputters out of the very-broken radio. “ _ Ra...mo...na… _ ”

Ramona hears keys jingling, and looks out the open window. Five cars away, someone’s returning to their car with their shopping bags in hand. 

“ _ Ra...mo...na… _ ” says the voice, again.

And she-

Ramona sits in the Great Hall, surrounded by bronze and blue and open school books. Plates and cups and platters of food have been pushed aside in favor of the sea of books now covering her friends’ portion of Ravenclaw’s table. 

Lena leans over Ramona’s book, her long black hair draping across the page and obscuring her view of it. A flare of irritation sparks in her, and she shoots the girl a jinx. 

“ _ Protego _ !” says a high-pitched voice and a yellow, octogonal-shaped shield springs up between the jinx and Lena, so close Ramona can see the way it absorbs the jinx like a drop of ink in water before blinking away.

Ramona holds in a groan before turning to face her Head of House. 

“Now, Miss Webster, I understand that tensions run high the closer to exam time it becomes, but that is no excuse for you to jinx your fellow classmates!” Flitwick stands short and proud, arms crossed and wand gripped in his fist.

Ramona huffs, indignant. “It was just a simple jinx, Professor! I wouldn’t actuall-”

“No!” Flitwick interrupts and shakes his small head. “There is never a simple  _ anything _ , Miss Webster. I’ll be seeing you in my office for detention this evening, at five.”

“But-”

“No but’s, Miss Webster,” he snaps, voice raising a level. 

Ramona instantly feels the eyes of a dozen different students around the Hall, and wilts. “Yes, Professor.”

Flitwick opens his mouth, and Ramona can see the point deductions from the House Hourglass in her mind already, but a strange voice comes out. “ _ Ra...mo...na...Ra...mo...na… _ ”

And she-

Ramona digs her bare toes in the sand. A sea breeze stirs her short curls in the wind, but March in California is much like California any other month - warm, sunny, and idyllic. The only thing that could make it better is if Caroline wasn’t standing next to her, playing music out of a bluetooth speaker. A handful of Caroline and Ramona’s “friends” are scattered about the beach, most likely stirring up trouble.

She keeps her eyes on the ocean, on the horizon, and wishes rather fervently that the sea would rise up and swallow them all whole. Then she wouldn’t have to live with mistakes of dropping out and running away with a girl she hadn’t known long enough to know to stay away from. If she focuses just right on the sound of seagulls, it’s almost as if the pop-punk music isn’t even there.

“ _ Ra...mo...na… _ ” says a voice from the bluetooth speaker, repeating on loop.

And she-

Ramona snickers quietly next to Lena, who grins in equal mirth. They can hear Looney Lovegood asking one of the other girls, Marion, if she’s seen Looney’s shoes. Lifting up her transfiguration textbook to cover her face from Looney’s view, Ramona mouths along to her words, crossing her eyes for added flair. Lena breaks, grin falling open as she laughs. Ramona smiles at her best friend’s fun, thinking the sound something beautiful.

“Excuse me,” Looney’s too-soft, too-distant voice interrupts. 

Lena stifles her laughter, barely, and Ramon moves her book down to see over the top edge. Looney stands in front of the ottoman she and Lena claimed, looney from top to bottom, radishes hanging off her ears and mismatched socks. Ramona can barely hold in an eye roll.

“I was wondering if either of you have seen my shoes,” she says, and it’s almost as if she’s not even looking at them but more  _ past _ them. “They seem to have gone missing.”

“Sorry, Looney,” Lena says with false sympathy. Looney finally looks at them and it’s even worse than when she hadn’t been, all intense and wide-eyed. Creepy. “We’ve not seen them.”

Looney opens her mouth and says, “ _ Ra...mo...na...Ra...mona… _ ”

And she-

Ramona peers out the passenger side window of the car as her mother drives past the looming white buildings. Rock plays loudly on the car radio, and her mom scream-sings along to the lyrics.

No one but she gives it a second look, so used to seeing scenery as a blur on their way to school. Only she can see the beauty in the stretch of buildings; not her mom or her siblings in the back. They still don’t believe her when she says she’s going to go to College there, some day. They don’t believe her about a lot of things, which she’s used to.

Alongside a guitar riff from the radio, a voice says “ _ Ra...mona! _ ”

And she-

Ramona wakes up even before her alarm clock goes off. She’s laying in bed, eyes open and curled up under the blanket when it goes off at 8AM. She shoots up from under the blankets, sending Hairy in the corner into a fit of surprised coughs and feathers. The owl gives her the stink eye as Ramona slams the button on the alarm clock.

“Sorry, Hairy-fairy,” she says, rolling off the bed, “But I’m so excited! Today’s the day! I get my Hogwarts letter!”

And the owl hoots back, “ _ Ra...mona… _ ”

And she-

Ramona walks down the hall of her school, head down and arms wrapped right around the binder clutched to her chest. The halls are full of students packing up their things, slamming their locker doors and chatting amongst themselves. 

The mocking laughter of her once-friends rings in her ears like a nightmarish echo. She hates that she can’t stop the dribbling of tears, or the snot, or the way her nose goes bright red. All it does is prove them right. 

Ramona takes a shuddering breath, wipes her face onto her shoulder, and holds everything in. She bites her tongue with enough force to give her focus, to keep her face blank.

Over the loudspeakers in the hall, the Principle speaks about the Middle School closing early due to uncommonly bad weather. A snowstorm in the middle of March? 

Ramona finds her locker quickly, and crouches down to open it. Immediately, she starts crying again. Why can’t the guy above her keep his locker clean? Why does he not cap his drink bottles?  _ Why is it always her? _

Over the loudspeakers, a voice. “ _ Ra...mona!...Wake...up! _ ”

And she-

-opens her eyes.

A child leans over her, black hair falling over her shoulder and into Ramona’s face. It tickles her nose and Ramona sneezes. The girl’s face is pale and her blue eyes are wide. Seeing Ramona blinking up at her seems to do something good, as she regains a little color and leans away from Ramona’s face. She takes her hair with her, thankfully. 

Ramona swallows tightly, and tries to take stock. What’s the last thing she remembers? Cooking breakfast with Marie. French toast and bacon. Telling jokes about the way she can’t manage to flip the toast over in the skillet without ripping it in half. 

Above the girl, behind her head, the ceiling is not old-school, popcorn-textured, or white. It is grey and stone. The ground beneath her prone body is hard as rock, too, not the carpet that runs through the entirety of her shared apartment. Ramona feels like her brain is running on dial-up internet, taking forever to catch up. Whatever is happening right now, she doesn’t like it.

“Are you okay, Ramona?” the girl asks, and Ramona is sure she’s never met this kid who somehow knows her name. “Did it work? Do you know the test answers?”

“I’m-” Ramona stops. Did her voice just sound like a kid’s? “Uhhh...”

Yeah, yeah it had. She hasn’t heard that voice in… God, years? Not since puberty. She had forgotten what her kid-self had sounded like, and there hadn’t been anything to remind her of the soun. Ramona had done her best to stay and out of photos  and videos during her tween years. Snotty, it was her voice sounded like.

“Ramona?” says the girl sitting beside her now.

Ramona pushes herself up, and stares down at her body. 

Child torso. Nonexistent chest. Short legs. 

Ramona stares at the small hands that are connected to small wrists and small arms. She’s a kid again, right down to the long nails before she’d started biting them as a nervous habit. Even the thought of it has her hand rising, the thumb nail quickly caught between her teeth. 

Ramona works her jaw, staring into her lap. She’s wearing… a dress? What? It’s long-sleeved, and she can feel the collar around her throat, and it goes all the way to her ankles. There’s a crest on the chest, she notices, a patch of some sort. Buttons down the collar to her chest, all done up, and two pockets at her waist. With her free hand, Ramona pulls a lock of her hair into her view. It is long, straight, but undeniably the same shade of reddish-brown she sees in the mirror everyday.

“Ramona, say something,” demands the girl. 

Ramona takes a deep breath, and drops her hand from her mouth. “What did you do to me?”

For a moment, her words don’t seem to register on the girl’s face. Ramona can see when it does; the girl’s face pales to white as a sheet, and she covers her face with her hands. Ramona can’t help but notice the sparkly blue nail polish.

“Oh no,” moans the girl, muffled. “Oh, we’re  _ so  _ in trouble.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm gonna regret putting this note at the end bc it'll just show up at the very end of the entire fic once I've put more chapters onto this, but whatever. It'll annoy me later. 
> 
> Welcome! Ramona is in a bit of a pickle. Both Ramona's, really. 
> 
> Writing this chapter felt less like writing a prologue and more like writing a cold-open to a scifi-mystery-comedy. I enjoyed it! 
> 
> Let me know what you liked, what you didn't like, what you found intriguing, and what parts you wish I would've skipped (and why?).


End file.
